


the start.

by chadsuke



Category: Legion of Super-Heroes (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 08:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14328786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chadsuke/pseuds/chadsuke
Summary: Part of Querl’s story starts long before he was born.





	the start.

**Author's Note:**

> originally written as the backstory for a roleplay.

Part of Querl’s story starts long before he was born. In the 21st century, with the original Brainac, the evil villain who faced Superman. Then Brainiac 2. Then Brainiac 3. And then the title lay dormant for years, for centuries, with nothing but pain and hatred associated with it. The stigma plagued the line of Dox even into the 30th century, when something changed. Something… was different.

Kajz Dox, Querl’s father, was born. He was not a 12th level intellect, like the son he later had, but he was smarter than the average Coluan, possessing a 10th level intellect to their 8th. He did something that no one could quite have foreseen.

He took on the Brainiac name.

After a thousand years, there was a Brainiac 4, for Kajz had but one goal: he wished to make their name associated with good. He did not want people to look at them, to look at the Doxes and the Brainiacs and see nothing but the atrocities of the past, but the good of what he could do in the future.

Kajz was an absolutely brilliant scientist, and one who worked in the medical field. He was busy, so busy, far too busy for something like romance and yet. Yet. He wished to have a child. He wished to continue his line, to have a child to care for and teach and raise, and so he had one.

Querl Dox.

As his father was a very busy person, Querl found he spent much of his time alone. He was raised quite a bit by robotic caretakers until he was deemed sufficient to care for himself on his own, and then it was just… Querl. Oh, his father loved him. Kajz spent as much time as he felt he could with Querl, nurturing him and raising him on stories of superheroes and the heroes of the past.

When he was young, so young he could sit on his father’s lap and soak in his warmth, nestle against his bulk and hear the beat of his heart, Querl relished the stories. Loved them. Longed for those heroes and what they stood for and loved to hear his father’s laugh when Querl told him about how he wanted to meet them someday, and he would, he absolutely would! “I don’t doubt you will,” Kajz would say. “Just make sure I get to meet some superheroes, I’d really like to.”

But as he grew… Well. All the medical advances in the world could not stop the associations with Brainiac, especially as he so brazenly took the name, and Querl became the target of bullies. “Why do you want to know about superheroes?” one said, once, leaning over him. “Gonna take after Brainiac? Carry on the legacy?”

There’s so much power in a fist.

Querl lashed out. Distanced himself from his father and his stories. There were no such things as superheroes, not anymore – and why did it even matter? What was the use of stories? Stories wouldn’t change the past. Stories wouldn’t erase evil.

And what was even the point of trying to change that? Of redeeming the Brainiac name? “I’m no Brainiac,” he spits at his father, and he sees him recoil and part of him relishes in that hurt, that he can make those words hurt just as much as a fist.

They don’t talk.

They… exist. They drift within the same home and the same area and eat together on occasion but it’s naught but silence and hurt and roiling boiling emotions bubbling just below the surface and threatening to spill over. Kajz spends time at the hospital or in his lab and Querl has his own lab, his own projects, and nothing needs to ever coincide if they don’t want it to.

But. But.

It’s a simple chemical containment procedure that needs to be done every day at the hospital. Something Kajz has done every single day he has worked there, so many times, it’s as routine as breathing.

He messes it up, and when someone asks, he has no idea what they’re talking about.   
“What procedure?” he asks, and they stare at him.

“…What disease?” Querl asks softly, a few days later.

He sees his father waste away. It’s a Coluan disease, a rare one, genetic and not contagious and untreatable and the most terrifying thing that Querl has ever seen. Kajz forgets.

It starts out small. Routine things. He thinks he’s brushed his hair when he hasn’t. Oh, the plates are in a different location. I’m sorry, I forgot where my gloves went. But it’s too dangerous for him to work, too dangerous for him to be in his lab, and he totters around the house, reads, sleeps, exists.

Querl is terrified.

He’s terrified of letting him be anywhere alone, for what if he forgets the way home. (And he does, eventually.) He’s terrified of letting him be in the kitchen, because what if he catches something on fire. (He does.) What if he cuts himself what if he forgets who he is what if he forgets who Querl is what if what if what if what if. (He does, he does, he does, he does.)

The moment that Kajz looks through him and doesn’t recognize his son is the worst moment in Querl’s entire life. Tied for the second worst – with the moment his father drawing his dying breath, holding Querl’s hand, being the other.

When Kajz passes, Querl has nothing.

No one.

There is absolutely nothing.

He drifts. He’ll find himself just staring into space for hours, looking at nothing, feeling nothing. He forgets to eat. The house falls into decay and his lab sits abandoned and he cannot touch his father’s lab, he cannot he cannot he cannot he cannot-

The news is on and he is not watching and he is just staring and existing and being when something. Something catches his attention.

Superheroes, the newscaster says, and suddenly Querl’s world snaps into focus.

There’s a Legion of Superheroes, now, the caster says, and Querl stares at the screen as though it holds his entire meaning for living. It is a bunch of children, utilizing their common or uncommon abilities, to do good and uphold the traditions of heroes from the past and save the world and and and and and

Father would love this, Querl thinks, and he cries for the first time.

After that, he eats. Cleans the house, top to bottom, ensures everything is in order, packs up a bag, and leaves. He’ll come back someday – that isn’t a question, but right now he has one place he needs to be. One thing he needs to do.

The Legion tryouts are crowded. There are no two ways about it, and he’s not surprised. True, very few seem like actual candidates for the Legion, but there are so many that want to try out. He’s there all day before the very tired Legionnaires usher him into the tryout room.

“Hey,” one of them says, the redheaded Winathian. “What’s your name?”

“Querl Dox,” he says, automatically.

He laughs a little, and shakes his head. “Your codename, dude. I’m Lightning Lad, she’s Saturn Girl, and he’s Cosmic Boy. Start with your codename.”

Oh.

Querl thinks of his father. He thinks of Kajz Dox, and how his rumbling laugh felt, how his tired face crinkled in a smile when he saw his son, even at the end of a long time. He thinks of how his father worked so hard, but- he also thinks of the way that Kajz looked through him, saw a stranger in place of his son, and how his final breaths sounded, so rattling and hurting and deep. It’s a lot to think about, but he does it all in the span of a second. Perks of being a genius, he supposes.

He lifts his chin. “Brainiac 5,” Querl says, and he smiles.


End file.
